a beautiful dance (that happened by chance)
by Elle Blessingway
Summary: She hates when he smiles at her insults. (She loves his smile.)


**Notes: **This was written for the 2013 Interhouse Fest at LiveJournal. The prompt I wrote for was a request for Ted/Andromeda, using the quote _"Words surround you like fog-they make you hard to see." ~Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest_ as inspiration, and showing Ted's difficulty courting a Black woman. Thanks goes to _fiery_flamingo_ for the awesome prompt, and to the lovely _leigh_adams_ for beta'ing this piece.

**Disclaimer: **I didn't create the music, or the Harry Potter books. This was done out of love. No money is being made.

.

_Dig up her bones but leave the soul alone_  
_Lost in the pages of self made cages_  
_Life slips away and the ghosts come to play_  
_These are hard times for dreamers_  
_And love lost believers_

_Bones - MS MR_

.

**lost in pages of self made cages.** Andromeda is not happy, but she is not unhappy, either. She just… is. She exists, and for the most part, she is satisfied with that.

If she approves of Sirius and his rebellions, she keeps it to herself. There is a reason she was sorted into Slytherin like every other generation of her family. She is not brave.

But she is smart. Andromeda knows what is necessary to live a life free of the 'unfortunate accidents' that have befallen those in the family whose faces have been blasted off the family tree.

Even so. She did not tell Bellatrix that Sirius is the one who jinxed her goblet of pumpkin juice at supper in the Great Hall the night prior. She may not be openly brave, but she knows how to keep her mouth shut. And besides, it was terribly funny to see her seemingly untouchable sister covered in juice and quite unable to do anything about it under the watchful eye of Headmaster Dumbledore.

Andromeda is not happy, but every once in awhile she is very, very amused.

.

_The world was on fire and no one could save me but you_  
_It's strange what desire will make foolish people do_  
_No, I'd never dreamed that I'd meet somebody like you_  
_And I'd never dreamed that I'd lose somebody like you_

_Wicked Game - Phillip Phillips_

_._

**show me how it's done.** Edward Christopher Tonks - Ted - is not a terribly important or gifted wizard. And he does not mean much in the grand scheme of things. Ted is a Muggleborn. His mother is a substitute teacher at Thomas Mills High School in the parish of Framlington in Suffolk. He doesn't know who his father is.

For all intents and purposes, he is a nobody from nowhere who has little going for him. Ted is only sixteen, but he isn't a fool. While things have been sorted out in the Muggle world since the second world war, racism (_or whatever one wanted to call the equivalent_) was alive and well in the wizarding world.

At worst, Hogwarts was just a stop along the way to teach him how to control something that would make him unfit for the Muggle world if his magic were to leak at an inopportune moment. At best… well, at best it's immensely satisfying being the _more_ special one in his family. When he was young he wasn't quite sure he'd ever out-do his elder brother - star student and athlete. Frank was sure to be a professional footballer sooner than later.

But Ted was a _wizard_. Heh.

What was impressive to his tiny little Muggle family, however, was quite the opposite otherwise. It was why, incidentally, he shouldn't have let himself ever look twice at Andromeda. Ted knew better.

But he loves her smile. The tiniest curl of lips when something deeply amuses her. (_He was looking toward the Slytherin table at supper, and he shouldn't have been. But he was. Bellatrix's juice. The jinx. How spitting mad the older witch was. And Andromeda's reaction…_ ) There is a shine in her eyes that gives away the laughter she never lets out. Ted wants to see her laugh.

He wants to be the one who makes her laugh.

Andromeda Elladora Black is a pureblood witch from the most distinguished House of Black. Ted is a Muggleborn. A 'Mudblood'. He's got no future, and he's pretty sure her older sister would eviscerate him on principle alone if it wasn't against school rules. Or, you know, the law. The way things are going, he doesn't even have a future in the Muggle world, either. It's not as if he can't put 'Hogwarts' on his curriculum vitae. (_But he can swish and flick! Now that's a life skill worth having…_)

Ted knows better. He really does.

_._

_I want to reconcile the violence in your heart_  
_I want to recognise your beauty's not just a mask_  
_I want to exorcise the demons from your past_  
_I want to satisfy the undisclosed desires in your heart_

_Undisclosed Desires - Muse_

_._

**a beautiful dance that happened by chance.** She didn't even know who he was until fifth year.

She made Prefect. Her mother expected as much. Her father was proud. Andromeda was just glad she didn't give either any reason to give her more than a passing thought, to be quite honest. For her own part, Andromeda was glad to go to school a bit earlier than her sisters. Bellatrix was (_volatile, worrisome, frightening at times_) tiresome.

Like herself, Edward Tonks was a newly minted Prefect, only from Hufflepuff. At the first meeting before the Sorting Ceremony he smiled at her and introduced himself. (_Call me 'Ted'._) He _shook her hand_. No one else had ever been so brave as to touch her. It was especially unexpected of a Hufflepuff.

When Rodolphus Lestrange made to get up from his quiet recline on the edges of things, she shook her head. She could handle untoward Mudbloods on her own.

Andromeda made a show of wiping her hand clean of his filth. "Do not assume to you can touch me again, Mudblood."

His lips twitched. "Silly me. I thought you were a decent human being for a second there. I'll be sure to stick to my own kind from now on." He stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked much more at ease than he should have. She frowned. "I mean. I usually have a better knack for finding the fun people in the room. Everyone's bound to make a mistake here and there, though."

And then he winked at her. _Winked_. And walked away.

Andromeda wasn't sure if she wanted to hex him, or let out the mad giggle tickling deep inside her chest.

She settled for jinxing him. After they were dismissed, he tripped over his own feet in front of everyone. Andromeda was pleased.

The look he gave her promised retribution. That look made something flutter in her belly.

It wasn't until much later Andromeda wondered if she should have just let Rodolphus intervene for her. It would have saved her a lot of heartache in the long run.

_._

_You are the hole in my head_  
_You are the space in my bed_  
_You are the silence in between what I thought_  
_And what I said_

_You are the night time fear_  
_You are the morning when it's clear_  
_When it's over you'll start_  
_You're my head_  
_You're my heart_

_No Light, No Light - Florence + The Machine_

_._

**you are the hole in my head.** He smiles at her. A slight twitch up just on the one side. His eyes are knowing. Warm. Inviting. She hates when he smiles at her insults. (_She loves his smile._)

Ted shouldn't smile at her. He doesn't understand how _dangerous_ it is for him to entertain more than a passing thought about her. When Bellatrix makes threats on his life in the hallways, his lips quirk just so. As if he finds her dramatics amusing.

As if they are only dramatics.

He will never understand how dangerous it is for _her_ to think of him. (_Thoughts are dangerous. Thoughts change hearts. They change world. They will get him killed._)

Andromeda knows better.

_._

_Every day is one more inch of a slow blade sinking in._  
_Vision fading, suffocating inside my own skin._

_I can't stay here in this place,_  
_I'm slowly freaking out, I'm slowly freaking out._  
_I can't breathe_  
_You're addicting._  
_I'm slowly freaking out, I'm slowly freaking out_

_Slowly Freaking Out - Skylar Grey_

_._

**just remember i warned you.** Two weeks into the first term of her fifth year Andromeda received a letter during breakfast in the Great Hall. She ignored her elder sister's insistent looks and set it aside. Just because _Bellatrix_ didn't have the patience to eat breakfast before reading her own post didn't mean Andromeda was bound to the same habit. She liked to have a full cup of tea before facing the day, thank you very much.

It was for the best. In a way. In the sense that she was saved from spewing her tea everywhere, at least.

When she opened the letter a jinx was activated and Andromeda was forced to sing the ditty penned neatly within.

She sang about grog. And wenches. And other unmentionable things.

It was humiliating. And just a little bit thrilling, because all eyes were on her (_and eyes were never on her, they were always on her sisters - one for being particularly powerful and the other for being particularly beautiful_). And Bellatrix was _so mad_, which was the very best.

Andromeda would _never, ever_ want to repeat the experience. She wasn't given detention because it was obviously not her doing, but it was mostly mortifying. She cannot claim to have a even a fair singing voice.

But Bellatrix's face… Andromeda supposed she, too, should be just as incensed that anyone at school would _dare_ prank a Black - and she _had_ felt that way, at least for those first few minutes after it happened. Her cheeks were hot with a healthy dose of embarrassment and anger, and if she'd been able to freely act in that very moment, she would have hexed Edward Tonks quite thoroughly - because she _knew_ it was him.

He was _smirking_ at her.

He was such an _ass_.

But if Andromeda was entertaining the thought of indulging in a certain amount of violence, it was nothing to how Bellatrix reacted. Her elder sister had gotten right in her face, demanded she tell her who had the gall to do such a thing to one of their illustrious blood.

Andromeda kept her counsel. Shook her head (_because 'I'm not going to tell you' and 'I don't know' can be the same thing if you use gestures instead of words_). Vowed to get him back for his transgressions. But she would do it on _her_ terms.

(_And she would be lying if she said she didn't find her sister's dramatics more than a little bit amusing. She would be lying if she said she wished she'd never met Edward Tonks._)

_._

_Sweet dreams are made of this_  
_Who am I to disagree?_  
_Travel the world and the seven seas_  
_Everybody's looking for something_  
_Some of them want to use you_  
_Some of them want to get used by you_  
_Some of them want to abuse you_  
_Some of them want to be abused_

_Sweet Dreams - Emily Browning_

_._

**disappearing in plain sight.** Andromeda never had lofty aspirations. She always knew what was expected of her. To become powerful, befitting her station as a pure witch of the House of Black. To marry the man chosen for her. To bear pure heirs and bring them up as she herself was raised.

Pure. Refined. Well mannered, and honorable.

Andromeda has never resented this. In some ways, she is quite proud to be part of something bigger than herself, to be part of a legacy. That she carries an illustrious name, and that she will be part of passing it on.

The honest truth of it, though, is that it never occurred to her to imagine a different life for herself. She was told to be proud, and it does not hurt to be proud, so Andromeda was proud. She was told what her future would be, and there didn't seem to be anything inherently wrong with it, so she accepted it for what it was.

It is not as if she has ever had the power to forge her own path.

She is not the powerful one, the bright star of the family. Bellatrix will get the luxury of choosing where her future will be - or, with whom, at the very least. Narcissa is cursed with beauty. She is even more bound than Andromeda. Narcissa will sell to the highest bidder, as it were. Andromeda has only ever hoped that the man chosen for her is kind.

Really, it has always been easier to not feel than to be disappointed, or disheartened, or dissatisfied. And there is a comfort in knowing what the future holds. Her life will be as so many generations of Black women before her.

During her fifth year, and her sixth, and her seventh, though… Andromeda _woke up_. The sky was more blue. The grass, more green. The air smelled _wonderful_. Anger sizzled through her, and amusement was a heady thing. She smiled.

She became a person full of possibilities. She felt passion. Longing. Want. Fear.

It wasn't until Edward - _Ted_ - Tonks saw her that she realized she wanted to be seen.

What was once comforting is now suffocating. Her father has chosen Evan Rosier to be her husband when she graduates. He is not a kind man.

She has learned how to truly live, and now Andromeda cannot breathe.

She hates Ted Tonks.

_._

_You know I'm not one to break promises_  
_I don't want to hurt you, but I need to breathe_  
_Which way is right? which way is wrong?_  
_How do I say that I need to move on?_  
_You know we're headed separate ways_

_Too Close - Melanie Martinez_

_._

**can't lie no more, can't hide no more.** Andromeda is not brave. Ted knows that. He knows Andromeda Elladora Black better than she knows herself.

He did not set out to know her as he does now, but it happened nonetheless. He thought she was a snob. A prejudiced, pretentious girl who deserved everything she got. It was fun to exchange pranks with that girl. He felt justified. Righteous, even. Because Andromeda _is_ snooty, arrogant and narrow-minded.

In some ways, she always will be that girl. She was born a Black, and raised a Black, and she thinks like a Black.

She is also one of three. The first was taught the world is hers. Want, take, have. Such things suited this one. She is blazingly bright. The world will bend to her will. It is a frightening thing. (_Andromeda thinks he does not understand, but he does. He just chooses not to let it stop him from living._)

The second was only ever destined to be in the shadow of the first. And it turned out it was her nature to embrace the twilight in between. She carved a place for herself there. Learned to manipulate shadows. Became the untouchable, unknowable specter. (_words surround you like fog… they make you hard to see._)

What he knows about the third is she was cursed with the kind of beauty that brought down the walls of Troy. He also knows the third is much more canny than she lets on. The third plays at being the malleable doll she appears to be physically, with her ringlet curls and achingly clear blue eyes. She keeps her own council, however, and really, that is all Ted cares about.

Because the third saw him ask the second to come with him after graduation. Leave it all behind. Let herself be happy.

But Andromeda is not brave. She is clever and witty. Beautiful. Loyal. (_Scared._)

She walked away from him. But he expected this.

"You can come out." His voice is tired.

"You knew." Narcissa is only fifteen, but the intelligence in her eyes is much older.

"That you were there?" His lips twitched up, but it's a humorless expression. "Yeah." He stuffed his hands in his pockets. "But it does you no good to turn your sisters against one another, and it won't change anything if you're the one to rat her out to the family, or if her actions do the same."

His lips twitched again, but there was a spark of knowing warmth in his eyes again. "Besides. You do care for her, in your way. Her happiness costs you nothing, and in fact, may benefit you in the long run. You'll help her where you can. Which helps me, in the end."

Narcissa raised a brow. "You assume much."

"I'm not wrong."

The young girl gave him a long look. A look that was much, much older than she was. If Ted was the squirming type, he might have done so in that moment. It was the look he would have expected Andromeda's father to give him if they were just a boy and a girl, and there wasn't blood and politics and death in the middle of things.

"Perhaps not," she finally said, before turning and walking away.

It could mean nothing. It could mean everything. Ted didn't think he'd ever know.

His gaze fell to the frozen, hard packed earth. He'd always known better than to involve himself with Andromeda Black. He sighed.

"If you hurt her, I will kill you. Remember that." He lifted his gaze in time to see the diminutive blonde disappear around the corner.

His lips twitched. Perhaps he had a chance, after all.

_._

_To buy the truth, and sell a lie_  
_The last mistake before you die_  
_So don't forget to breathe tonight_  
_Tonight's the last, so say goodbye_

_A Modern Myth - 30 Seconds to Mars_

_._

**got a secret.** "Narcissa."

"Rabastan." She did not startle at his abrupt appearance as she was sure he intended.

He didn't say anything. Just held her gaze with his own. It was an intimidation tactic she had watched him use on others many times - even fellow Prefects. Narcissa was not like the others though, and it didn't matter he was two years her senior. She was a daughter of the Noble House of Black.

She lifted a brow at him. "What is it that you want, Rabastan? Your silence is beginning to bore me."

"You're not scheduled to do rounds tonight on your own. Where's your sister?"

"There was a light on the grounds. She went to investigate." Narcissa shrugged. "I do not like the cold, and so I did not choose to attend her."

His lips twitched very slightly. "Of course not."

"Now, offer me your arm like the gentleman you've neglected to be, and assist me in clearing out the Astronomy Tower."

He chuckled and did just that. It was the best she could do for her sister. Her foolish, foolish sister.

_._

_I'm not too shy to show I love you, I got no regrets_  
_I love you much, too much to hide you_  
_This love ain't finished yet…_  
_So, baby, whenever you're ready…_  
_When you're ready come and get it_

_Come & Get It - Selena Gomez_

_._

**i'm yours, no take backs.** It is too cold to be outside at night. It is definitely too cold to be behind the Quidditch stands with only a few cloaks to protect bare skin from the frozen ground.

Andromeda cannot see the stars. The fog is too deep, too thick. It sticks to her like a living thing. But her skin is feverishly hot from kisses and touches and want (_and love, love love_), and the cool dampness feels good. (_Dark. Hazy. No one will ever find them_.)

"Are you sure?" His expression is open. Honest. His eyes are both clear and dark. If she told him to stop, he would. He would hold her. Kiss her eyelids. Tell her stories about his childhood in Framlington until she dozed off.

If she told him to leave her, never touch her again. Let this go because_ it cannot happen_... he would never, ever let her go.

He _sees_ her. Wants her. Loves her.

"Yes." She smiles. "I'm sure."

She threads her fingers into his hair and pulls him down to her. They fumble with his trousers and her oxford. She laughs when he grumbles at how impossible her bra is. She gasps when he finds his way beneath her knickers. He swears when they fit themselves together the first time. A tear slides down her cheek. It hurts.

Even then he promises he'll stop.

She kisses him and he stops making promises.

Later when they are sneaking back to the castle she makes a promise of her own. "I'll come with you after graduation. I'll go wherever you want me to go."

Her dark hair is tousled, her lips swollen with his kisses. Her clothes are askew. But her eyes are bright and hopeful and happy, and she has never looked more beautiful.

Ted cups her cheeks and presses his lips to hers. "I love you, too."

_._

_Oh, reckless abandon_  
_Like no one's watching you_

_A moment of love_  
_A dream_  
_A laugh_  
_A kiss_  
_A cry_  
_Our rights_  
_Our wrongs_  
_A moment of love_  
_A dream_  
_A laugh_  
_A moment of love_  
_A dream_  
_A laugh_

_So stay there 'cause I'll be coming over_  
_While our blood's still young_  
_It's so young, it runs_  
_Won't stop 'til it's over_

_Sweet Disposition - The Temper Trap_

_._

_A/N: I wasn't planning on participating in the **interhouse_fest** this year because not only has writing been difficult, but my real life has been overwhelmingly busy and stressful. But my friends run this fest, and I wanted to try and give them something to post._

_Writing this was like pulling teeth. I scrapped the writing bits multiple times, and very nearly only submitted the fanmix - I wasn't about to publish any writing I hated, after all. Persistence paid off though, and I finally did get past my block to write most of this in one sitting. The story ended up a bit sporadic, but I'm mostly pleased with it, especially given how hard it was to get past my writers block._

_If you're interested in downloading the fanmix and/or seeing the album art that accompanies this piece, there's a link to the goodies in my profile._

_Hope y'all enjoyed! If you've made it this far, thank you for reading!_


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